127 Hours

This blog is about the film '127 Hours', written and directed by Danny Boyle, and starring James Franco.
This film is about 127 of the most life altering hours in Aron Ralston's life. [Think 'Cast Away'] Aron Ralston is a young, American mountaineer.
This film is based on a true story. So, when I say "written by Danny Boyle", I mean the screenplay.
Moreover, this film, from what I have read, might as well have been written and directed by Aron Ralston himself, as he played a very active role in the day to day, on the set, directing. He did this, to make sure that his true story was told, and that nothing was being embellished or elaborated upon. These were his conditions, when he gave Boyle permission to make the film.

I may be particularly biased when it comes to discussing this film, as I am an avid climber myself, and enjoy anything having to do with the mountains, rocks, climbing, or outdoor adventure.
However,
The two things about this film that had the greatest impact on me were:
The soundtrack: The music is perfectly blended to the screenplay. From the opening scene, as the screen shots are diving between split images that compare urban city life to the wild outdoors, before we even meet Aron, the song playing in the background is called 'Never Hear Surf Music Again', by a band called 'Free Blood', and the lyrics are making the same argument that the screenplay is making...perfectly blended.
Later, during the absolute most epic moment of reckoning in the entire film (once again, think 'Cast Away' and Tom Hanks fighting the rain as he makes his desperation attempt to sail off the island...) a song called 'The Funeral', by the band 'Band of Horses', is playing in the background. Works beautifully together, and draws all of the desired emotion and intent.
The second most impressive and functioning piece of this film is the performance by James Franco.
His role in this film must have been the absolute most challenging piece to this puzzle. Not only is he, for the most part, the sole character on screen (meaning nothing but monologue 90% of the film), but he also is attempting to reenact a real, historical, epic, recent event, that actually happened to a guy who was there, on the set, every day.
And, to make all things harder, the event he is attempting to reenact, requires him to film himself, with a camcorder, while being filmed (This part of the movie must have been very difficult for the director as well, but they pulled it off beautifully).
Oh, and btw, he has to simulate what it would be like to saw off his own arm with a pocket knife.
The pocket knife sawing also did a great job with incorporating sound effects to further depict the level of pain and agony that Aron Ralston (real guy) must have been in when he was actually doing this. Particularly, as he touches the nerve in his arm, causing an 'Operation game' style burning alarm to sound out loudly.
Finally,
I noticed that this film used a ton of flashbacks, halucination scenes, elapsed time, fast cuts, more fast cuts, and internal thought/monologue...all of which did a great job at keeping the film fast paced, even as the underlying plot depicted a stranded climber, sitting in one exact place, for over 5 days. Pretty impressive. (Damn sure more entertaining than 'Cast Away', with none of the 'fall asleep in the theatre' time intervals)